


Building It Back Up

by lurker_writes



Category: Dragon Quest Builders (Video Games)
Genre: Other, Post-Canon, Slice of Life, because I had to pick a name but I'm not really writing about MY builder, doesn't matter; they ride or die forever, gender neutral builder, imagine them as you will, is it romantic? is it platonic? is it somewhere in between?, no beta we dye liek mem, so much as the general idea of the builder
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-31
Updated: 2019-08-31
Packaged: 2020-10-04 02:31:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20463560
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lurker_writes/pseuds/lurker_writes
Summary: The domestic misadventures of a Master of Destruction, after the end of the world... didn't.Chapter 1: Malroth has no clue what to do with a problem he can't beat into submission. The Builder... The Builder has dinner.





	Building It Back Up

**Author's Note:**

> Did I ever try to be as generic as possible when writing The Builder, but in the end I had to pick a name. I went with 'Martel' which means 'hammer', so... about as generic as I could get.
> 
> My writing time is severely limited these days, but I love this game and those post-game dialogues have filled me with a mighty need. I realize that this might, briefly, look like it should be tagged with angst. The angst is an illusion. The angst is a lie. This feels train is only stopping in happy land, okay? I hope you enjoy my little gift to you, DQB2 fandom, because I'm sure I'll be back with more.

Martel felt strange at the best of times, now that Malroth was no longer a _constant_ companion. A frequent companion, certainly, still tagging along on whatever the day's errands held with all the exuberance and innocent, joyful sort of chaos that might be caused by a particularly large and excitable pup, not quite yet aware of its own size and strength in relation to everything else around it. They sorted away the last of the materials brought out for the day's building, everything back in its proper place, and dusted their hands off across the tops of their thighs -- not that their hands were _dirty_, it was just... after everything, they didn't want to carry that kind of thing around with them. It made their skin crawl, honestly; and if it made them uncomfortable, it surely didn't sit well with Malroth either.

Thankfully, he wasn't hard to find. One only had to follow the trail of smashed rocks and broken trees... Though, Martel noted, all of the materials that might have been usable had been gathered up. Well, good. It was healthy for Malroth to have a... a constructive outlet for all that destructive energy. Bottling it up wasn't going to do anyone any good. The trail went off past the snowfields and into the highlands. Shielding their eyes from the sun, Martel could just make out a new path up the chalk cliff face; brighter, rougher spots where the world had probably quite literally been crushed under Malroth's heel. Maybe a brief stop to the kitchen was in order before making the climb. After all, building was hungry work -- and a meal cooked special was always a good way to show a friend how much you cared. Hmmm. Now, they'd collected plenty of extra back then and those awful wiggly things weren't exactly in high demand. There should still be a good bit left... yes, it seemed like just the thing!

* * *

Malroth kicked his heels against the cliffside and pretended it didn't bother him when more bits chipped away under his boots. He didn't know why he'd run up here. It was stupid to be up here. It wasn't like he could run away from his own thoughts, and it only took him further away from the dock. The last thing he wanted was to trudge past Lulu and all the _fine folks_ of Moonbrooke when he slunk away with his tail between his legs.

He shook his head until his hair whipped in the wind. No. Bad. Don't... don't think about tails right now.

But the whistle of the wind didn't quite cover up the sound of Martel creeping up behind him. Not to ears like... like his.

He clenched his teeth until all of the vicious words bubbling up in the back of his throat could be swallowed back down. Saying that stuff hadn't helped any back then. He wasn't going to do it again now.

"Saw you building a cell for Anessa," he croaked instead. Martel laid a hand on his arm, but he charged on without looking up. "And after everything, I guess I understand why they'd be scared of me. No, I _do_ understand. I get it. But I'm not gonna-- Thought maybe I'd have Brownbeard ferry me back to Skelkatraz tomorrow. I bet everything's a real mess there. And _anyway_, those deadnauts deserve a kick right up the hipbones for locking their Master of Destruction in a cell without supper! I'm gonna go stop them terrorizing people and put the fear of me back into 'em!"

Martel eased themself down onto the cliff next to him. He glanced sideways just in time to catch them shrugging and rustling until that dumb fur coat they'd made was up around their ears. "That sounds like a good idea. Wonder what I should pack for the trip? Think all our cargo will make it with us this time?"

Malroth groaned in frustration. "No. Not _us_. Me. Alone. I'm going to go and sort out all the monsters, and you're going to stay here and build for the--" his voice broke and he wasn't even mad, how stupid was that? "-- the _humans_, and it will all be better when we stop pretending we can get along."

Martel leaned into him until their coat squished and bunched up, and he could just feel the press of their bony shoulder against his arm, and then their cheek against his shoulder. "Pastor Al wasn't pretending. Goldirox wasn't pretending. I'm not pretending."

Malroth hissed. He wanted to shove them off, but what if he hurt them? What if they fell down the cliff and forgot the windbraker and-- he just couldn't take it. "No, you're building another cell for me. Thanks for adding a bed, I guess. And a curtain on the pot. Sorry I won't be using it." Was that too mean? Whatever, it didn't matter. He'd cleaned up the mess he made. Now Martel had to take care of the humans, and he had to take care of himself.

"I'll build you all the cells you want," Martel sighed. "But I'm never, _ever_ going to put you in one. Never again. You already said, it's for Anessa."

"For-- What did _Anessa_ do?!" He was so surprised, he momentarily forgot to be angry. Or rather, he never _wanted_ to be angry, and his surprise gave him an excuse to stop.

"Asked, mainly." They shrugged again.

"She asked you to... put her in jail?" He tilted his head like turning the world sideways would make this make sense. It did not.

"Mmmm. Ish? She kept apologizing to _me_ for what they did to _you_, and I just... got frustrated. Yelled a bit."

"You _yelled_? I don't believe it. I don't think you can even turn down the grin on that dopey mug of yours."

"I yelled," Martel huffed. "And I stomped. And I accidentally broke the rocks I was putting down around the new hot spring, so now we need to find a place for about 10 cubits worth of gravel."

"Where was I when this happened?" Because he would have loved to see it.

"Hmm. Well, Lulu had just debuted a new recipe, so probably enjoying some frogstool mousse with a poison ooze syrup garnished with a sugared fat rat tail, or whatever it was."

"Oh, right. Why did everyone run away? It was good."

Martel just shook their head. "It was... I..." They rested a hand over their eyes for a moment. "Let's not. _Anessa_."

Malroth perked up a bit more at the reminder. "Yeah! Tell me about how you laid down the law on Anessa!"

Martel elbowed him in the ribs. "No, you lay down the law. I just got quite upset, and it was all rather an embarrassment. She keeps apologizing, but I still don't think she understands just how awful what they did to you was and I told her so. I mean, I've been captured twice! But Captain Whitebones let me wander around the ship. I imagine he was about to let me go. And on Skelkatraz..." They wrapped their arms around his and hugged it to their chest, against the plush fur of their coat. "We always had each other, 6208," Martel simpered, punctuated by batting their eyelashes stupidly until he chuckled despite himself.

"I wasn't even worried until they threatened to take you away," they continued, much more somber. "I don't know what I'd do without you."

He tried to ignore how his insides chose that moment to go all weird and squirmy like that flower Martel had found. The one he liked the smell of. "Probably get killed by ants while you spend forever fussing over where one fern should go," he muttered. "...But you're not really going to lock her up just because she's not apologizing right. Right?"

"I'm not really going to lock her up at all. Just building the thing gave me the heebie-jeebies. I don't want to _use_ it. She decided she should try to spend as long in a cell as you did. I just told her that her sorry would mean more if she really understood what they all did to you. _And_ that she definitely better learn before she considers tossing anyone else in, whoever that would be."

"So you're not going to--" he cut himself off with a sigh. "Of course you wouldn't. You're not a monster."

"I wish you wouldn't say that like it's a bad thing."

He glanced down sideways at them. As soon as they caught his eye, they leaned further and further into him until he had to rock back and brace his weight on his arms lest they both take one major tumble.

"I've always trusted you," Martel said. As if to prove it, they rested their head against his collarbone, tucked under his chin. He froze. "And I _never_ thought you were a human."

He wanted to say something, but he mostly just sputtered uselessly.

"Did you?" they asked. "I mean, you've got pointy ears and red eyes. And that charming grin of yours is awfully... teefy."

He was still sputtering, but at least he managed to sputter, "_Teefy?_"

Martel lifted one hand and bopped him gently on the nose. "I can't stop it mattering to you, but you have to know that it _never_ mattered to me. Not once."

"Not once? Really? Not even when--?"

"Not _once_! Not ever! I thought I'd killed you! That was the worst moment of my _life_!"

"I'm pretty sure you did," Malroth mused. "Everything was dark, and then I saw a really bright light and--" He glanced down to catch sight of the most withering glare of disgust he'd ever seen on Martel's face, so fierce that he snapped his chin back up and stared out past the ocean where the sun was just disappearing over the horizon. "And I'm here now and everything is fine."

"Is everything fine?" Martel settled back against his side. "You aren't going to run away to Skelkatraz and found your--" they heaved a positively bone-weary sigh "--'Empire of Evisceration', are you? With materials you filched from my island, mind."

"Hey! It's at least half my island." He pointed to himself and smirked, though as his lip slid over his teeth he couldn't help but become self-conscious of the fact that they really were awfully... teefy. "I helped make it."

"So you did." But Martel's answering grin was short-lived and shaky. "Malroth. _Is_ everything fine?"

_Yes_, he started to say, and then didn't. "I... I want it to be. I'd make it, if I could, but I still barely manage torches. Maybe that one's too big for me." He let his hands slide until he was lying back on the chalk and staring up at the sky. The stars were all out and twinkling. Hundreds of pinpricks of light, like the embers of tiny fireworks. Beautiful. He wished they didn't make him so sad.

Martel rustled around a bit, and then the slight weight of their head, with the soft tickly hair, was resting on his bare chest. "Stupid," they said with a frankly insulting level of fondness. "You've already seen what we do when things are too big. We make it together."

"...Yeah." Malroth's hand hovered in the air for a moment before he steeled himself and brought it down to rest on top of Martel's head. A moment more and he forced himself -- allowed himself? -- to close his eyes. "You're right. We can make it fine together."

* * *

They laid there together for a good long while, staring up at the stars with no other sound than the rush of the wind and the faint crash of the waves way down below. It was nice. Things hadn't been like this for a good long while, not since Moonbrooke had driven a wedge between the two. Martel was reminded of the earliest days in Furrowfield, before they'd even had a proper room, let alone a roof. Rosie, Perry, and Bonanzo would all work themselves to exhaustion fussing over the welfare of their meager little crop of cabbages before falling right into dreamland at sundown; and they'd stay up deep into the night with Malroth and help keep watch. There wasn't much talking then, just... being. But there wasn't much they'd _needed_ to talk about. They'd been perfectly at peace with each other, no worries to break to the quiet over.

This time, what broke the quiet was a rumble of complaint from Malroth's belly.

Martel sat up and stretched, arms flung out wide. "Aha. Suppertime at last."

"Wha--" Malroth popped up like a spring. "If you were hungry, you should have said something!"

"Not me, you." They rifled through their bag of questionable provenance -- don't think about beard hair, _don't_ think about beard hair, _just don't think about beard hair_ \-- and pulled out a cute wooden lunchbox and a fat waterskin that jiggled a bit oddly when it was plopped on the rock in front of them. "I thought you'd be fuming up here, so I made you something."

"Oh. That was really--" Malroth started, and then caught the end of their statement. "_Hey_! If you knew I was mad up here, why'd you leave me to be mad?"

"_Because_." Martel rolled their eyes. "If I'd just followed you up here right away and asked what was wrong, you'd have just gone--" they put a fist on their hip and cocked their chin up in a fair impression of Malroth's usual bravado. "--'_Ha_! You don't have to worry about me! I'm not a dumb baby that gets upset by little stuff like that!' While you were very, _very_ upset!" They waggled a scolding finger under Malroth's nose, right into his shocked face. "You big dumb baby. Bad feelings are like splinters! You have to get them out before they fester. You have to tell your friends what's wrong or _they can't help you_!" they snapped, slamming their clenched fists down onto their thighs.

"...Wow," Malroth finally said as he reached out to take both of their hands. "I think I wasn't the only one with splinters. You big dumb baby."

It started as a couple of giggles and just grew and grew until they were both on their knees, foreheads together, red-faced with tears gathering in their eyes, laughing and gasping with the sort of desperate intensity that only came when one had no idea whether or not laughter was the _right_ response, but it was the only one at hand.

Martel sat back and scrubbed at their wet cheeks with the heel of their palm. Oh, they'd needed that. They'd really, really needed that. They picked up the lunchbox and held it out for Malroth to take. "Here. I worked out the recipe in Malhalla, but I made this one special just for you."

Malroth took it with a lot less enthusiasm than was hoped for. "So it's... monster food."

"Malroth, Lord and Master of Destruction!" Martel chided. "I swear, if you'll eat Lulu's seaweed and scallywinkle cake and you won't even _try_ the meal that I slaved over especially for--"

"All right!" Malroth yelped, looking especially thunderstruck. He flipped the lid off a bit too carelessly, and it clattered over and down the side of the cliff. Well. They were never seeing _that_ again. "I'll-- Hey! This smells really good."

Martel would agree, if by 'good' one meant 'gross', so actually, Martel wouldn't agree at all. But it was to Malroth's tastes, and that was all that mattered. They were still staring after the lost lid, and didn't see him take the first bite, but they sure did hear it -- the unpleasant _snap_ of the tentacle's outer skin, clear enough that they got terrible sense memories of the bitter, slimy ooze that followed and... _Ugh_. Underneath their coat, disgusted goosepimples broke out all over their skin.

"What is this? It's great!"

Martel sighed. "Tentagliatelle is what we're calling it. Tossed in freshly splatted slime oil, with a dusting of poxglove spores."

"You splatted a slime just for me?" Malroth was much... _cuter_ when he was happy, with a sparkle in his eyes and that big teefy grin.

"I'd say it never knew what hit it, but it hit me first. And, here." They grabbed the waterskin and held it out too. "Some freshly fermented, hmmm... frogstool fizz. That's a good name."

In return, Malroth held up a forkful of tentacles lazily wrapping themselves around the tines. "Are you sure you don't want any?"

"I... No. It was the second-worst thing I ever put in my mouth. I would seriously consider starvation first. I'd rather go back to eating raw cabbages. But you like it, and that's the point."

Malroth stared down at his food in serious contemplation for a moment. "Hey," he started slowly. "Remember when I gave you all the cabbages?"

"Yes?" How could they forget? He'd starved himself for them. They still felt awful about it.

"...It was because I really hate them. They're so... fresh. And green. I don't know how you can stand them."

Martel pressed a fist to their mouth to cover up a fresh wave of snickers. "What a pair we make."

"Right?" Malroth asked around a generous mouthful of absolutely disgusting. "We're perfect for each other."

Martel scooted around so they could lean against Malroth's back, right into his generous pouf of hair. After a moment, he leaned his head back until it rested on top of theirs, and they lapsed into a peaceful sort of silence again. Martel let their eyes fall closed. They'd missed this. They'd _needed_ this.

"Martel!" Lulu hollered up the cliffside. "MARTEL!"

Malroth jumped to his feet, and Martel scrambled up after, grumbling, after falling back into the general region of his chalk-dusty bottom.

"Martel-- _oh._" Lulu stumbled around the last bend, red-faced and panting with her skirts caught up in both hands and hiked well past her knees.

"What?" Malroth growled. "What's wrong? Are there monsters?"

"Yes!" Lulu gasped. "Well, no. Well, yes, but not--" She _tsk_ed in frustration and pulled a dampened sheet of paper from where it was tucked into her sash. She held it out for Martel to take. "Captain Brownbeard found this washed up on the beach. I really rather think you should read it right away!"

Martel unfolded the letter with gentle hands, near trembling with both hope and relief. Malroth crowded behind them to try and read over their shoulder.

"_What_?" he demanded again. "Is there a fight happening or not?"

"Or not!" They let their head fall back against Malroth's sturdy shoulder. "Sorry. I need to steal Brownbeard tomorrow. Nevermind Skelkatraz, your Empire's loyal subjects await."

**Author's Note:**

> the scribbled note that started this was "two losers, sitting on a cliff, having lots of feelings cuz they're absolute dingbats"
> 
> next time: Malroth accidentally acquires a horde of adoring monster children


End file.
